Tattered Red Scars
by blooddrippingstrawberries
Summary: It was supposed to be over. But Jane and Lisbon find themselves drawn back into the dark once more with a protege of Red John's, one who wants Jane to know that Lisbon is an unfinished masterpiece of his...and he won't rest until he finishes. With time running out, and emotions boiling over personal lives, will Jane catch onto his game, or will Lisbon's blood become his paint?
1. Copy in Red

Everything had slowed down. The clock on the wall seemed to have faded in the background to a dull, slow tick as each second passed. People rushed passed hurriedly, but that, too, went unnoticed to him. The only sounds he could hear with absolute clarity were the pounding of his heart and the sweat dripping from his forehead. His eyes focused on the red stains on the wall that created the smiley he thought he would never see again, tracing the slanted eyes and mouth over and over again, creating a sick rhythm that was oddly calming.

"Jane." He heard from somewhere on his right, effectively snapping him back into his present reality. "Jane, you okay?"

Jane looked over his shoulder slowly and could see Lisbon standing beside the old, dirty hotel bed, her eyes full of concern, possibly because she had been watching him for some time just staring at the bloody wall, or perhaps because he looked one inch from death from shock. He didn't know. He didn't exactly care, either. He watched her eyes soften even more at his isolated expression, and he knew he couldn't do that to her. He couldn't lie. He had done that enough to her in the eleven years they shared as partners.

"Do we know who she is?" he asked, turning his head back to face the smiley face trademark on the wall. He took to following the blood trails down the wall, now. It was much less depressing, in his opinion.

"Rigsby is going through her possessions, but we have no formal identification on her," Lisbon explained, her tone softer than her eyes had been a moment before. "This has to be some kind of copy-cat, Jane. Red John is making license plates in prison now."

Jane scoffed. He had thought so, too. But then Lisbon had called him up at two-thirty in the morning to a no-name hotel, and here they were. He could feel Lisbon walk toward him and sit on the edge of the dirty bed next to him. As if he had done it a thousand times before, he looked up into her face and into her eyes and made her try to understand without saying a word.

"It's him, Lisbon," Jane told her, the severity cutting the air between them. "This is him. I _know_ it. I can _feel_ it."

"Look, Jane, you remember the case with Doctor Wagner, don't you? He was a sadistic copy-cat just trying to get away with his crimes. That's just what this is. Not every murder with a smiley face is him," Lisbon said. "Especially because you know how public the capture, trial and conviction were of the _real_ Red John. We got him, Jane. He's locked up tight in maximum security. He couldn't have done it."

"Boss," Rigsby said from behind them, cutting off anything Jane was about to reply with. "The only thing she had with a name on it was a slip for the hotel charges." He handed her a small, white slip of paper in a small evidence baggie. "It's illegible."

Lisbon looked down and the slip and let out a soft curse under her breath. The signature on the bottom of the hotel charge receipt was impossible to read; a squiggled mess that led nowhere. She handed it back to Rigsby, gave him orders to have it dusted for fingerprints, and then turned her attention once more back to Jane.

"It's too precise," Jane told her, tilting his head, making Lisbon follow his gaze to the smile on the wall. "It's too similar. A copy-cat could never get the details completely right. Nobody could unless they were Red John himself." Jane lifted his hand and outlined the smile in the air in front of them. "The way the eyes slant, the slope of the mouth, the open circle-," he sighed. "It's too perfect, Lisbon. There are no mistakes."

"Jane, I-," Lisbon started.

"Lisbon," Jane said softly, looking over at her and leaning his face close to hers, "look at me."

She did so, her eyes already meeting his. She could read the pleading in them, and her eyes drifted to his mouth as he spoke. Though there were people bustling in and out of the dank, smelly hotel room, it felt like it was just the two of them sitting there. There was no tension between them that she could feel, just a desperate intensity rolling off Jane and landing in the space between their faces, like a shadow struggling for daylight.

"You, of all people, should know the real thing when you see it. You've seen them just as much as I have. This poor girl is the unfortunate victim of Red John. Deep down, you know it. You know it, but you are so stuck on the fact he is in prison, that you can't see the obvious," he told her, shaking his head and tapping her knee with his index finger. "It's _right_ in front of you, Lisbon. You're a better cop than this."

When Lisbon did not answer, his frustrations got the best of him. He rose quickly and walked around Lisbon and headed for the door. If she wouldn't listen to him, then there was nothing to be done here. She was missing the obvious signs, choosing not to see the scene for what it was, but for what it wasn't. He walked down the hotel stairs, past the emergency vehicles, flashing lights and sirens and stood at the edge of the woods lining the hotel on the east side of the building. He could feel her following him as soon as he left, but he chose to keep walking so that there was some privacy he much craved right now.

"Jane," she called after him, gravel crunching beneath her heavy boots. "Jane, wait."

He turned to her as she caught up to him and sighed. He didn't know how much she was ready to hear, but he had to tell her. He had to make sure she understood. Lisbon put her arm up in the air in a half shrug and his hand came up to catch hers, his fingers intertwining with hers slightly. The physical closeness of her skin on his always sent tingles up his spine, and this was no different. He could feel the heat from her skin and the slight tremble of her hand as he held it softly in his. He knew it was just a calming mechanism that he meant, but he could hardly complain about such a tender action giving him pleasure, too. Lisbon's eyes fell on their clinging hands and then wandered back up to meet his.

"Listen, Lisbon," he started softly. "I think this was Red John."

"It can't be, Jane. I had Bertram call just forty-five minutes ago and make sure Partridge was still incarcerated. He's safe and sound in his cell, Jane. Unless he's superman, he didn't do it."

Jane laughed and brought their hands up to his forehead in frustration. "Damn it, Lisbon. I didn't say he was _directly_ responsible." He brought their hands down and released hers as she tugged for him to free her hand. He wanted the warmth back.

"What the hell are you talking about? What do you _mean_ you don't think he was 'directly responsible'?"

"I mean—"

"You mean you think he ordered this from prison? He's not some goddamn mob boss throwing hits from the pokey, Jane," Lisbon said with an edge to her voice. "His calls are monitored at all times. You know that! You've been by to see him enough to know how much the guards and Warden are up his ass."

"If you'd let me finish," he retorted, throwing his hands up in the air in irritation. "I don't think he ordered this. I think he planned it."

Lisbon stood in the light from the moon, her eyes searching his face for some kind of explanation, but she found none. Instead, there was an odd sense of alarm behind the calmness he was trying to show; a bitter blackness that made her uneasy.

"You mean like this whole thing is from someone else?" Lisbon asked quietly. "You mean a follower?"

"Yes." Jane sighed in relief. "A partner, if you will. How else would everything about this murder mirror perfectly with all the others? You said it yourself. There is no way Partridge could have done it. But who is to say he didn't have an understudy? Who says he didn't pass on his tricks to someone else so that he would be guaranteed to go on long after he was caught or dead?" Jane explained, his eyes never leaving Lisbon's. "There were _two_ of them the whole time; _two_ killers in tandem to make _one_ Red John."

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

Lisbon pulled the light Gray Sedan up to the colossal building and put it in park. Digging in her pocket for her cell phone, she turned off the ignition and pulled the keys from the column. This wasn't exactly her ideal way to spend her morning, and her jumpiness seemed to be affirming this; she dropped her phone on the floor beside her.

"Damn it," she seethed, reaching down to pick up the phone. Instead of finding her phone, however, she found a hand. Jerking herself upright, she turned to the passenger seat to see Jane, smiling, holding her phone up.

"Lose something?" he asked, clearly amused at her current state. "You're going to be fine, Lisbon. I'll be right beside you the whole time."

"Yeah," she scoffed, grabbing the phone from his hand and rolling her eyes at him, "because you'll protect me, right?"

"That's right. I might not be a knight-in-shining-armor, Lisbon, but I told you before: I will always save you. Plus, he's separated by super thick glass. There is that," he told her, reaching down to release his seat belt. "Bad ass cop, Lisbon, trembling in her heavy boots," he laughed.

He was right, of course. It wasn't that she was scared to face the guy who terrorized people in California for years. It was more the memories he brought back. She never came to see him after the trial was over. She didn't even stick around for the verdict, which she ended up hearing from Van Pelt. Unconsciously, she reached her free hand over to trace the still visible scar on her right shoulder that extended down beyond her white polo shirt. She always hid it, now. Even in the hottest weather, she made sure it was covered up. She didn't need to be reminded during the day of its existence—it was bad enough she saw it in the dark when she was alone.

"I'm sorry," she heard Jane say. "I didn't mean to sound insensitive."

She looked up in time to see his eyes flick quickly away from her hand on her scar. She knew he felt responsible for its origins, but she never blamed him. Instead, she tried to quell the pain in his eyes every time he looked at it, which she knew was often, when he thought she wasn't looking.

Before she could reply, he was out of the car and stretching his legs. Lisbon sighed, unhooked her own seat belt, and exited the car, slamming the door in nervousness. Catching up to Jane, who was about 10 paces in front of her, she checked her messages on her phone [nothing important] and pocketed it back into her jeans.

The front of the prison was blanketed with shrubs and trees to make it look less assuming then it was. The concrete steps were adorned with iron bannisters on either side and separated in the middle. They had to do something to make this place look less like the house of killers, Lisbon thought. Her hands trembling a little bit, she reached for handle of the double glass doors. Before she got the chance to pull it open, she felt Jane's hand over hers, restraining it against the wide, black knob.

"Jane, what—" she started, turning to look at him in annoyance.

"Are you sure about this, Lisbon?" he interrupted, his face full of uncertainty. "Van Pelt can do this, you know."

"I can't be afraid forever, Jane," Lisbon told him, her voice cracking. "Weren't you teasing me just five minutes ago?"

He said nothing, lifting his hand from hers and hanging his head like a child who had just been scolded. Lisbon didn't have time to worry about hurting his feelings. She pulled the glass door open and walked into the front lobby followed by Jane.

"Can I help you?" an officer at the desk on the right asked them immediately.

After Lisbon explained that they were expected, and after mandatorily giving up her gun and phone and a five minute wait, another officer was shoveling them down a narrow hallway, stopping every once in a while to use his keycard to open the doors and let them pass. Finally, down at the end of the big hall, they were ushered into a small area. A green chair sat in the middle of the dank room facing a large glass window. There was no phone on this side of the glass that Lisbon could see, but she noticed three medium sized holes in the glass itself, which she assumed was for conversation.

"You can have a seat there," the officer stated. "Your friend here will have to stand."

After the officer had closed the door, Lisbon walked to the chair and sat down, her bottom lip already in between her teeth in nervous habit. Jane, whom she could feel pacing behind her, was of some comfort. If she had to face him alone, she didn't think she would have bothered. She remembered six months ago when she nearly did face him alone. Nobody was around to help her, but she didn't give up, then. Instead, there was someone there with her; someone who saved her. Though Jane never spoke about it to her or anyone else, she knew he saved her. She always knew he would find her, but the hopelessness inside her clouded over that knowledge, and she was ready to go. She was ready to die if that's what she had to do, but she would fight every second there was still light in her eyes. Lisbon closed her eyes and she could almost still feel the warmth of Jane's arms as he picked her up and carried her to safety; the words he said to her.

"Lisbon," she heard Jane say from behind her, bringing her back to the stony prison walls.

Lisbon opened her eyes and could see the door on the other side of the glass open up, an officer step forward followed by the person she had come to see. Dressed in the standard orange cotton jumpsuit, Brett Partridge, better known as Red John, stepped into the room, his hands and feet shackled, his hair shorter and his face in a twisted grin as his eyes fell upon her. The officer behind him escorted him to another green chair and pushed his shoulder to make him sit.

"Behave, Partridge," the officer told him, turning and leaning against the wall behind him. "Twenty minutes."

Partridge said nothing, instead choosing to turn his attention to Jane, who was still pacing behind Lisbon. Lisbon followed his eyes as they went from one side of the room to the other, a smile still unfurled on his bony face. Finally, after what seemed like years, he spoke.

"Still playing protector, I see," he laughed, his eyes finding Lisbon once again. He leaned forward in the chair. "I'm in here, and you are out there. You don't find it odd he is standing behind you even now, when you _don't_ need him?"

"I'm here about something else, Partridge."

"Isn't it how things work?" he asked, his eyes narrowing at Lisbon. "People only care when they need something, Agent Lisbon."

"I don't care about you," she shot back, her nervousness forgotten, replaced with anger.

His beady eyes widened in mock horror. "Then why are you here, Agent?"

"You have a partner," Jane interjected, coming to stand beside her. "Someone you taught your skills to, who is using your signature to commit a murder."

Partridge chuckled. Shaking his head, he looked from Lisbon to Jane and sighed. Lisbon could feel the rage coming from Jane, an almost pulsing sensation jetting through the air and waving at her skin.

"There are so many copycats, Patrick," he said. "None as brilliant as the original, though."

"You're lying, Brett." It was Lisbon this time. "You have somebody else picking up where you left off, someone who knows exactly what you would do and how you would do it."

"It's interesting," Partridge stated, his eyes finding the very tip of the scar protruding from Lisbon's shirt. "My handy-work is so neat and clean. Killing people isn't meant to be nasty, Agent. It's an art; something you want to proudly display for others to see," he said, his eyes tracing the familiar line he had cut into her from shoulder to heart. "Sometimes the canvas gets dirty, so you have to shift to a new one, even if the old wasn't finished."

"Killing my wife and daughter was 'art' to you?" Jane asked, his teeth grinding together in rage. "They were all I had."

"Wrong," Partridge said, the smile fading from his face now as his eyes flicked back sharply to look at Jane. "You had your greed. You had every sucker with a problem believing you could heal them! You had every person who had a fat wallet feeding into your ideals and your lies! You had people believing I was weak! I don't do weak, Patrick! Your family wasn't art to me! They were lessons!"

Desperate to deflect the bait that Partridge clearly wanted Jane to take, Lisbon leaned forward and tapped on the glass, getting Partridge to look at her again. The smile was back on his face, but his eyes were clearly pushed to the brink.

"We know you know something about this murder," Lisbon pressed. "Everything matches your murders almost exactly. Now, you are in here, which leaves us to think you have a friend you shared your techniques with."

His face lit up as if remembering something special that he had forgotten for a long time. It was an uneasy thing facing the person who tried to kill you and succeeded in his bid to kill many others. His face held steady as his beady eyes flashed and his pointed nose wiggled on his face.

"Love is a very strong thing," he told Lisbon. "But it only can save you for so long. Right, Patrick?"

Jane did not reply, but instead turned his head to Lisbon and shook his head. He knew they would get nothing out of him now. Though there was no denial, there was also no information they could use. Partridge wouldn't talk. He loved these games. But, what it did do was confirm what Jane knew all along: there is someone else out there killing in the same manner as Partridge had.

"We're done here," Jane told Lisbon, turning his back on the glass and on Partridge. "He's given us nothing."

Lisbon got up from the chair and started for the door. As she reached for the knob, she could feel Partridge's eyes boring into her back. She turned back with the intention on narrowing her eyes at him. Instead, he called to her.

"Scars can be reopened, Agent Lisbon," he told her. "They can be made to bleed. Blood makes the best kind of art."

Without a second glance behind her, she turned and followed Jane out the door. The last sound she heard before silence was the heavy door clanking shut on the man who haunted her dreams.

**X.X.X.X.X.X.X**

Though the exchange was short, it left Lisbon shaken.

"They should have killed him when they had the damn chance," Jane was saying, picking up his phone from the basket at the officer's station a few minutes later.

"You know they couldn't," Lisbon told him, taking her own phone and car keys from the basket. "He was knocked unconscious. They didn't have orders to kill him unless he was a danger."

"If I didn't have you in my arms, I'd have done it myself. I'm not saying I shouldn't have carried you out. If anything, I would have done it again if given the chance. What I am saying, is that a bullet to his brain while unconscious would have been something nobody would have known or cared about."

"I wouldn't know, I was bleeding out all over the dirt floor," Lisbon told him, pocketing her keys and rolling her eyes at Jane. They were out of the prison and down the stairs, heading for Lisbon's Sedan.

Jane grew quiet for a minute, lost in thought. Finally, as if needing to address something, he stopped in front of Lisbon, blocking her way.

"You have to know, Lisbon, that finding you there in that underground bunker, bleeding and alone, was like finding my family that night all over again. The same dread, the same pain came back to me. I know I wasn't there for you; that you were alone because of me. You don't know how hard it was for me to see you lying there with your shirt ripped open and you bleeding," Jane cringed.

Jane reached out and traced his finger against her scar, trailing his fingertip from her shoulder to just above her breast. He stared at his fingertip upon her skin for a moment before lowering his hand and looking her in the eyes. He could feel the shivering of her body; the goose bumps that rose on her arms.

"It's like a track," he told her, a small smile playing on his lips. "It's going from strong shoulders to a pure heart."

Lisbon smiled at him as he maintained eye contact with her. His face was unreadable, but she thought his eyes were telling her he was willing to ride the track, wherever it leads. As usual, Lisbon's phone rang, cutting off the eye contact and wiping the smile from both faces. Lisbon dug in her pocket and extracted her noisy, ringing phone.

"Rigsby, what do you got?" She waited a minute for him to finish. "Sorry, they took my phone. Is it a positive ID?" Lisbon waited a beat. "Yeah, go ahead, I'll remember."

Lisbon listened as Rigsby read the ID off the spreadsheet he was no doubt holding. When he finished, the color drained from her skin and her hands began to shake.

"Lisbon, are you alright?" Jane asked in alarm. "What is it?"

"Rigsby, are you sure?"

Lisbon waited a moment for confirmation, thanked Wayne, and hung up with trembling hands. Lisbon, looking at Jane as if he was trying to read her thoughts, was silent a moment. Then:

"That was Rigsby with a positive on the body," she whispered with labored breaths. "It's Tommy's ex-wife."


	2. Blood and Mortar

Lisbon sat on the floor of her apartment, albums spread around her in unintended patterns. She was sitting Indian-style, a thick white album opened to long forgotten memories. She hadn't seen Melinda, Tommy's ex-wife, in years. Annabeth had been just two or three when Lisbon decided that her career could do without the drama of her brother's family and only intermittently saw them; holidays and birthdays. Flicking through the pictures she kept, she could see the pretty brunette laughing with baby Annie, her blue eyes shining with the love of a new mom. Melinda Lisbon-Tolls had at one time been a picture perfect mother. She loved Annie, but never as much as when she was a baby. She and Tommy had gotten into fights, Melinda stopped caring about anything, and finally the marriage dissolved. Lisbon still had trouble believing it was really her in that Motel. It was hard to grasp.

A knock on her apartment door startled her, causing her to drop the album and stand, grabbing her Glock from the coffee table. Slowly, Lisbon crept in the shadows of the room and stood beside the door, one hand on the brass knob and the other on the trigger. She reached up, unlocked the chain lock and silently counted to three, then Lisbon wretched the door open and pointed her weapon directly at a scared looking Jane.

"Jane?" Lisbon squinted into the dark. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Put the gun down, first," Jane demanded, his hands in the air like a suspect being frisked.

Lisbon rolled her eyes, but lowered her gun and put her hand on the door jamb. Jane lowered his hands and rubbed his neck in either annoyance or embarrassment. Lisbon didn't care which; she just wanted him to tell her what he was doing at her apartment this late.

"You didn't answer your phone," Jane explained. "I've been leaving messages all day, and I...I got worried." He peeked around her and peered inside the apartment, almost as if expecting a guest or family.

"It's on vibrate, Jane," Lisbon told him, placing her gun on the table beside the door. "And I had stuff to take care of."

"Lisbon, uh, could I come in? It's kind of odd standing out here holding a conversation."

Lisbon didn't hesitate. Opening the door and moving aside, Jane squeezed into the apartment and she closed the door. Jane had been here before, and there were really no changes to speak of, yet she noted that he made it a point to look at her photographs she displayed of her brothers, father and mother and her niece, Annie. She watched his eyes take in the albums strewn about the floor and heard the small, almost inaudible sigh of pity.

"Did you get a hold of Tommy?" Jane asked, turning to her and licking his lips. "Rigsby said you wanted to do the notification yourself."

His eyes briefly flickered to where her scar was and back again. No doubt he was thinking of that night, and the phone call he missed when Lisbon tried to get a hold of him and couldn't. Lisbon sighed and put her hands in her pockets, lowering her head.

"Yeah," she replied. "He was torn up about it. They had issues, but she was still Annabeth's mother."

"Does Annie know? Have you told her?"

"She knows," Lisbon told him, turning and walking back to her couch and sitting down. "She's a daddy's girl, but she's still upset. Melinda was still her mother."

"Have you spoken to Melinda's family?" Jane inquired, sitting directly across from Lisbon in a white reclining chair. "Have anything there?"

Lisbon was annoyed now. She had to tell her brother and niece that their family member was dead and Jane was wondering if anyone has talked to Melinda's family! She knew her annoyance was irrational, but she was too emotionally strung to care.

"God, Jane!" Lisbon exclaimed, exasperated. "I just had to tell my brother and his daughter, who are her family, that she was butchered by a serial killer we supposedly caught! Do you think I had the energy right today to track down her family and tell them?"

"Your anger is misplaced," he said, leaning forward in the chair. "It's understandable, but misplaced. You're not heartless, Lisbon. I assume you gave Cho or Van Pelt the task?"

Lisbon scowled, but nodded. Before she headed over to Tommy's, she had called Cho to have him contact Melinda's new husband and give him the news. She would need to talk to him in due course, but for right now all she wanted was a nice scotch and some quiet.

Jane was quiet a moment, his eyes sliding from Lisbon to his hands. Lisbon knew this was a nervous habit of his, and she knew he was thinking. She hoped he wasn't harping on that night 6 months ago, in which his missed call almost lead to her death. She didn't blame him, and yet he chose to blame himself. It was a stigma on his soul that he couldn't shake; no matter how much Lisbon tried to comfort him. Even now, Jane slept with his phone in his pocket so that he may feel the vibration should she call, even in sleep.

"What is it, Jane?" Lisbon asked. She really was in no mood for a brooding Jane. "You get that look and I know you have something going on in that strange brain of yours. Spill it."

"She was your brother's ex," Jane began, his hand going through his blonde hair. "You don't find that odd? That someone that close to you is the victim? I doubt this was a random murder, Lisbon."

She couldn't disagree. Despite her readiness to scoff his words off, she just sighed. She had figured that out as soon as she got in her car at the prison. She knew what it was: a message. Red John didn't get a chance to finish her, but that didn't mean he wouldn't pass off the chance to someone else. She was silent the entire way to the CBI office, and she assumed Jane had taken it to mean she was in shock.

"Lisbon?" Jane asked softly, concern in his voice apparent. "Are you listening to me?"

Lisbon was silent for a moment more, and then spoke.

"Yes, I am aware of how it looks," she told him, looking away from the deep blue stare of his eyes on her face. "Nothing is a certainty, Jane."

As her eyes traveled back to Jane's, she could see the sharp dilation, indicating his anger was raising. She watched as he smashed his lips together and turn an angry red before looking away again. She didn't want him to worry about her; she didn't need him to. She was an officer of the law, and well able to fend for herself. She didn't like to be babied or fussed over, and she knew if she gave in and told him he was right, that he would do just that. She just wanted and needed to be alone. Her service weapon was always within reach, and she could protect herself if she needed to.

"Goddamn it, Lisbon!" he shouted at her, lifting himself from the chair and walking a short distance away from it. "You can't play these games. This isn't something you can hold your pride out for! Do you understand what the hell is going on here?"

"Yes, I-"

"No, you obviously don't!" he shot at her, bringing his hands up in exasperation. "There is someone out there targeting you, Teresa. This person wants you to know that they can find you whenever and wherever you are!"

She was taken aback. It was a rare occasion that Jane used her first name. She could see the muscles tensed under the milky skin of his neck, and his hands shook in the air as if a gust of wind was pushing them upward. Lisbon looked him in the eyes and scowled at him. She hated when he raised his voice to her. She didn't like being talked to like a child.

"You should know!" she shot out of her mouth before she could stop herself. She was too angry to retreat. "They found me then, and where were you? Huh? How could you possibly protect me now?"

Jane looked as if Lisbon had picked up her service gun and shot him in the chest. His face paled; his eyes flickered to her scar and then away. Without saying anything, he crossed the gap of space between them and grabbed her arm; not hard, just enough for her to feel it. Looking her square in the eye, he was making Lisbon just a bit uncomfortable. His eyes were beyond rational, his lips grinding against one another.

"How dare you throw it in my face," he scolded her, narrowing his eyes into slits of blue haze. "You know I would give anything to take it back! I would relive that day over and over again just to right my wrong. I don't need you to tell me how sorry I should be, Lisbon. I do that to myself every night when I close my damn eyes."

She was silent as he let her arm go. She captured her lip between her teeth and sighed heavily. She watched him turn away from her, but to her surprise, he did not leave. Instead, he returned to the chair and crossed his legs. She wanted to say she was sorry, but the words wouldn't come out. She felt guilty for bringing up the one weakness she knew he would be the most hurt by.

"I don't have a weapon like you do, but I won't let anyone hurt you again. That is my vow to you, Lisbon. You can bitch and moan about this all you want, but I plan to crash here until you decide to stop putting your pride ahead of your life."

She smirked at him. "You want to stay here? With me? I don't think so," she said, the smirk dropping off her face as she saw the resolve on his face. He was dead serious. "No."

"You're going to have to call Rigsby or Cho to remove me, then, Lisbon, because I don't plan on leaving here tonight or any other night unless you get some protection for yourself."

He knew she wouldn't call the guys. Lisbon stood and bent over to pick up the albums still scattered on the floor, angrily picking them up and shoving them back in the box in which she got them. She hated that he had this effect on her. She hated that she was kind of glad he was here, even though she had burned his feelings earlier. She could see him watching her as she hastily shoved the last album into the box and dragged it to the side. She turned to him with narrowed, angry eyes and placed her hands on her hips.

"Fine! You can sleep on the couch. I'll get you a blanket and an extra pillow, but tomorrow I'm going to ask Bertram about someone to watch over my apartment door just in-case you are compelled to come back," Lisbon told him. She hesitated, and then: "I'm sorry for what I said earlier. I didn't mean it. I'm just stressed."

"I wouldn't blame you if you did," he told her honestly. "I blame myself enough for the both of us."

Lisbon did not answer, choosing instead to retrieve the extra pillow and blanket and call it a night. She was emotionally drained and there was just no more room in her to argue or play devil's advocate. He would just have to sulk on his own. She felt increasingly bad about jumping on him about what happened. It wasn't Jane's fault and she knew it. The stresses of the day just built up and him shouting at her had released her wrath, to which she couldn't control.

"Goodnight, Jane," she told him, yawning loudly.

"Goodnight, Lisbon," Jane replied softly, watching as she went up the stairs and was inhaled by the shadows. "Sleep tight."

X.X.X.X.X

It was about the third time that Jane kicked off the blanket that he gave up entirely. Sleeping just wasn't going to come tonight. He was too ramped up and being in Lisbon's apartment alone with her wasn't helping. Sure, he had been here plenty of times, he even once sat on the same stairs that he was now looking at, but he was never here overnight, with Lisbon just a few feet away. Jane sat up and pushed the blanket off his legs. He had taken off his shoes so that he wouldn't scuff up Lisbon's couch, but he still wore his socks.

He stood up and carefully made his way around her coffee table, chair and box of albums on the floor. He knew where her tiny kitchen was from his previous visits, but it was such a challenge to find in the dark. He felt his way along the wall leading to the kitchen and stubbed his toe on a table leg in the process.

"Ouch, damn it!" He whispered, hopping in pain.

As he bent down to tend to his toe, he noticed a file on the table half illuminated by the moonlight coming from the kitchen window. What really caught his eye was the name _Melinda Lisbon-Tolls_ on the cover and some handwritten notes sticking from the back of the file. He knew he shouldn't, but he couldn't resist. His toe all but forgotten, he looked behind him as if to make sure nobody was watching [which was absurd, it was three in the morning] before carefully pulling out the chair and sitting down, sliding the file closer to him. He flipped open the file and began to read.

The first page was just basic information about Melinda, such as her height, weight, age and other details about her physical appearance. The second page was contact information for her new husband, and at the very bottom, a number where Tommy could be reached, and an address that Jane knew he no longer resided at. Jane flipped to the third page of the file, which was actually pictures of the murder scene. Various angles of the small, dank motel room, and in some of the pictures, Melinda's mutilated corpse filled the page under the familiar smiley face Jane had come to know very well. Jane scanned the photos and felt the dread of the past creep into his mind. The note may have been the first thing he saw, but it was the face on the wall that he would have nightmares about. The same smiley face he had seen on the wall of his daughter's room all those years ago, the blood dripping down the walls as if pointing to the horror awaiting him on the floor. He tried to understand and comprehend, but he was frozen in place, his daughter's blond curls caked in blood, his wife's hand clutching her little body as if protecting her from the unseen. He had fallen to his knees and crawled over to them, willing them to move, to breathe, to _come back_. He would never forget that night, just as he would never forget that smile on the wall for as long as he lived. And then there had been that night he almost relived the nightmare with Lisbon.

Jane snapped himself out of his misery and picked out a particular picture to observe. It was an up close picture of Melinda's body, or what was visible of it under the bloody white sheet covering her lower half. Jane noticed that, like most of Red John's previous victims, her hands were above her head on the pillow, and her head was tilted to the right side. Whoever did this paid attention to Red John's details and replicated it to an exact T. His eyes wandered to the woman's eyes; there he saw fear and surprise. She didn't know what was going to happen to her. There was blood smeared on her forehead and her palms, and some in her dark hair. He sighed and sat back in the chair, knowing that Lisbon had seen this. She couldn't possibly have known it was someone she knew closely, but now that she did, she was resolved to handling the case instead of handing it off to someone else. It wasn't even about conflict of interest, it was about personal justice now. He didn't want this for her; he didn't want the obsessions to start. He had made that mistake with her. He had been so bent on catching and killing Red John, that he didn't realize that he was pushing his chance at happiness away. He still knew how it felt to touch her, and how it made his heart race. Every time he saw her face, it made him smile. There was a time when he would hide how she lit up his face because he was sure Red John would catch on and make her another example, and he hadn't been wrong. The relationship became complicated after he was caught, with nothing to fuel Jane anymore, he still couldn't put how he felt about Lisbon into words. There were subtle hints and more touching, but he never made it seem as if it was meant romantically. Of course, he had meant it that way, but she seemed just fine thinking of it as a complex friendship. What had happened in that dirt filled basement, and what transpired after, was never willingly talked about between the two of them, but it had changed them both. Jane brought the picture closer to his eyes, the dark hindering his vision a little more than he liked. He scoured the smears and dots of blood on her forehead. He thought they looked odd, but he couldn't place why, so he moved on to her palms, which were spattered in her own red blood. He rotated the picture and he realized why the smears on her forehead looked odd. He pulled the picture closer to his face when something startled him.

From behind him, he could hear footsteps coming down the stairs. Hurriedly, he closed the file, pushed it back into place on the table and stood, quickly pushing the chair in and moving along the shadows until he felt counter top under his fingers. He could hear them stumble through the dark. From the small amount of moonlight illuminating the small kitchen, he could see nothing but wall. He turned to find the light switch behind him when they bumped into him with such force he stumbled back and hit the cabinet behind him.

"Jane?" A alert voice called through the dark.

"Lisbon?" Jane asked.

The kitchen light flickered on and he could see Lisbon standing in a long night-shirt that came to her knees and gun in her hand blink rapidly at him. He righted himself and couldn't help but take in the close fitting night-shirt she was wearing. It accentuated every part of her, and he found it hard to look away. Eventually, noticing she was tilting her head wanting a reply, he looked away and up at her face.

"Uh, just looking for some tea," he said. It wasn't exactly a lie since he had planned to make some tea before he took to snooping in that file. Now he wished he hadn't look at the file. What he thought he saw made his skin turn cold. There was no way to make sure of what he saw until he had a better opportune moment. "I couldn't sleep."

Lisbon placed her gun on the counter and sniffed. Obviously, she knew he loved tea, so she didn't question it but just reached up into a top cabinet and took a box of tea bags from it. She tossed the box to Jane and pointed to the dish washing machine behind him.

"Cups are in there and the kettle is already on the stove," she told him, pointing now to the copper colored kettle on the back burner. "Sugar is in the bowl on the table, if you want any," she added.

"Thanks," he replied, opening the box and taking out two tea bags. "Couldn't sleep either, huh? Did you want some tea?"

Lisbon sat down at the table and moved the file to the pile of documents sitting on an occupied chair that Jane had not seen in the dark.

"Sure, thanks," she told him. "No, I can't get her out of my head. I mean, we weren't close by any means, but just to know someone that close to me is gone."

"So, you acknowledge that it's no coincidence, then?"

"I'm stubborn, not stupid," she replied, watching as he filled the kettle with hot water. "Of course I do."

Jane said nothing. He didn't want to push her right now. He didn't even plan on telling her he looked at the file she left on the table. He would ask her in the morning if he could look at it closer, just conveniently forget to tell her he already saw inside and wanted a deeper look. Instead, as he waited for the water to boil, he came to sit beside her at the table. He gazed at her and realized just how tired she looked; bags hung under her eyes and she looked paler than normal. He wished he could take away anything negative she was feeling, but he knew if he touched her so intimately, he may not be able to stop with just a hug.

Lisbon remained silent for a few minutes, only listening to the sounds of water bubbling in the kettle and the drumming of Jane's fingers on the table. The silence seemed to stretch on as Jane finished making the tea and sat the cup in front of a dejected looking Lisbon.

"I thought it was all over," she finally said, not meeting his eyes. "I thought that we—that _I_ was safe. Cruel thing to think, I guess. We caught him and I was there, and when you came and found me, I thought all of this was behind us."

"We couldn't have known he would teach a follower of his to do his bidding, Lisbon," Jane told her, taking a deep sip of the warm tea. "And don't sing my praises. I wasn't there. I found you because I was selfish and wanted to get my own brand of justice. Had I not taken off, you wouldn't have been vulnerable and alone. Hell, I didn't even know you were down there."

This is the first time either of them had gotten close to discussing what happened that night. They both avoided it like the plague, and only heard the full story in its entirety at the trial. Lisbon refused any type of help from a therapist after it happened, and Jane, racked with guilt, didn't emerge from his attic at CBI for months. He avoided Lisbon any time he could, not able to look her in the eye and know that the reason she wore jackets on hot days was because of him; because of what he let happen to her. He watched her take a gulp of tea and play with the rim with her fingers. He knew without looking at her face that the moment of talking about it passed; she was shut out once again.

"I, uh, I have to visit her husband today," Lisbon told him. "I should probably try to get at least a few hours rest if I want to sound coherent. You should, too."

Jane shook his head and smiled sadly at her. "You know I don't sleep very well. You know what they say: sleep is overrated."

"Well, to be honest, it's a little creepy to have your co-worker sleeping on your couch," she retorted, causing him to laugh. "It's even more awkward that I am drinking tea in my night-shirt."

Before he could stop himself, he blurted out, "It's not awkward for me."

She found his eyes and stared into them with her own for what seemed like minutes. Finally, using the cup as a distraction, she looked away from his face and drained the last of her tea.

"Thanks for the tea, Jane." She stood, putting the cup to the sink. "Shut the light off when you've finished."

"Sure." He smiled at her as she passed him. A beat. Then: "Lisbon?"

"Hm?"

As Lisbon turned around, a whizzing sound from outside made them both turn their heads in unison to the kitchen window. Suddenly, as if everything was in fast motion, Jane lunged from his seat, knocking his tea cup over in the process and tackling Lisbon to the ground as the window exploded in a cascading mess over them, Jane on top of Lisbon, his hands protecting his neck, but leaving no room between them. Jane could hear a thump close by, but he did not move. As the glass stopped falling, Jane lifted his hands and brushed the glass from his hair.

"Lisbon! Lisbon!" he shouted, getting to his knees and pulling a gasping Lisbon up to a sitting position. She had some glass in her hair, but from what Jane could see, she was unharmed otherwise, just a small cut on her arm. "Are you alright?" he asked her.

"One hell of a tackle, Jesus Christ," Lisbon gasped, brushing blood from her wound, which was leaking on her night-shirt. "What the hell _was_ that? What happened?"

"I don't know," he told her, now brushing the glass from her hair. He realized his hand was on her hip, but he didn't move it, trying to stop the trembling her body was doing, most likely from the quick shock of the situation. "I heard something hit the floor. I'm going to see what it was. You okay?"

She looked over herself; she noticed his hand on her hip but nodded, too shook up to care, not that she would have minded anyway. "Yeah. Yeah, I think so."

"Okay."

He stood and looked at the window first. A big, black gaping hole stood where the window had once been. The frame was completely gone, and the glass panes were obviously missing, too, seeing as he had brushed about 2 panes worth from their hair. Walking slowly and deliberately, Jane made his way over to the hole in the wall and peered outside. Quiet. Nothing but the dark sky and the moon filtering outside. He stuck his head out to look below the window, but it was too dark to see anything. He was pretty sure that whatever it was, _whoever_ it was, was long gone. Jane stuck his head back in the kitchen and shook his head.

"Whatever the hell it was, it's gone now," he said loudly, crunching over glass on his way back. He was sure there was a piece of glass in his sock, now. Goddamn it, his only good pair, too.

Lisbon stood, her night-shirt rumpled and bloody from the cut on her arm. "Jane," she whispered, kneeling down and picking up a red object from under the table, where it had landed. "Was this what you heard thumping on the floor?"

Jane took it from her and examined it. It was a dark red brick. One the side facing Jane was a carving. The carving made Jane's blood run cold; it was the smiley face from the Red John scenes. Slowly, as if a trap was waiting on the other side, Jane turned the brick over and saw another carving in the chipped and cracked surface. There was blood coloring the white gouges in the brick. Jane assumed it was Melinda's.

"Lisbon, you should call this in," he said, not taking his eyes off the morbid object, "but first I need to tell you something."

**X.X.X.X.X.X**

He laughed as he closed the car door and walked around to the trunk. He hadn't anticipated her having company this evening; certainly not Patrick. Yes, it had been a lucky break. A lucky break indeed. He placed the key in the lock and turned it, opening the small, dark recess, letting the moon illuminate his present. He didn't do this often, but this was a special occasion, and he would just have to break his rule this one time. Besides, the fun part wasn't started yet. The boring part was over, now. Now he was having some fun. He laughed again as he reached in and grabbed the sack, placing it on the dirty ground and closing the lid of the trunk.

Walking along the dark path, he was careful not to rip the sack he was dragging across the gravel. He was glad he insisted on the gloves, because his hands were becoming sweaty inside the latex and he knew he couldn't afford to waste time with any slips. He had put the gloves on before he hurled the brick through the window, which helped his grip, the brick dust acting as a non-slip solution for the coverings. As he rounded a corner, he could see the faint lights and knew he was nearly there; just a little further.

There was a time, when he first began, that he would never risk such a brazen idea. Change was good, he thought. Change made you stronger; made you invisible to the weak. Patrick was a witty and fair opponent, and he had known that from his first stint on television. He had been scarily accurate, of course, when describing his master. Things had changed, now. He was no longer the protege, but the carrier of death. Painstaking years went into teaching him how to become his master. Patrick and Teresa had been a very worthy pair right down to the last second of freedom for him. He had seen that for himself. Patrick was devious, but he didn't account for the trustful partner of Red John.

_Partner._

He rather liked that word. He hummed along to William Blake as he reached his destination. He released the sack and crouched down beside it on the ground. He reached in with his hand and pulled the contents out, feeling the tension in his fingers. He stood and began to walk straight ahead, pulling as he went until it was completely out in the open. Releasing his hold, he walked back to the sack, folded it, and slung it over his shoulders.

He had to get to work, now. The sun would be up soon enough and he had other things to do. He sighed.

"Time to get to work," he whispered.

But this kind of work was _fun_.

**X.X.X.X.**

**Thank you for the reviews and favorites/follows! It means a lot to me. **


	3. Shade of Burgundy

_Night had fallen over the city an hour before, and Lisbon wasn't sure she should be doing this now, with minimal light and almost everyone in the neighboring houses asleep. It was risky, that she knew. Nothing in her police training had ever taught her about what to do in this situation. She was crouched around the corner, facing the door of the house, her fingers on her weapon, which was still holstered. She promised herself she would take him in peacefully if she could. She didn't even think of alerting Van Pelt or the boys to help her; she rather risk her own neck than theirs. They were faithful and had a bright future in the CBI. No, she much rather go down in shame on her own or become a statistic without taking the others with her._

"_Come on, you son of a bitch," she whispered, waiting for some movement to signal her chance. "It's over."_

_Just then, her phone began to vibrate in her pocket. Quickly, she extracted the phone and looked at the screens caller identification. She had been trying to get a hold of Jane all day. Since their blow out fight, she was unable to reach him without hearing his stupid voice-mail messages. When she had gone to his attic, there was nothing there but his old murder board and some left over packets of tea strewn about the floor. The tea packets on the floor were her fault; she had thrown the box at him in a fit of rage._

_Glancing down at the screen, Lisbon frowned. It wasn't Jane as she had hoped; instead, it was Cho. Lisbon hissed as she shoved the phone back into her pocket. She didn't bother to call him back. She didn't have time for anyone except Jane._

"_If you would answer your goddamn phone," she hissed under her breath, turning her gaze back to the front door once more._

_It was so dark outside now, that she could barely see anything in front of her. The porch light simply wasn't enough to illuminate the entire entrance way. She could faintly make out a porch swing on the far side of the house, which was now swinging slowly to a light breeze. She was glad she decided to wear her Kevlar vest; she didn't like that she couldn't see well, and anyone could aim at her from the darkness and she would never see it coming. She was vulnerable, alone and, if she was being honest, terrified. Her ultimate goal was to bring him in peacefully, with little trouble. She knew being a tiny woman had a huge disadvantage on a serial killer, but she had her weapon with her; her trusty Glock. It wasn't the fear of being hurt; it was the fear of being killed. She knew how dangerous he was and how ruthless he could be. If she wasn't smart, she would be another tick on his victims list, and this would have all been for nothing. Even the fight she had with Jane would be a testament to her utter stupidity if this didn't go the way she planned it to. She couldn't help but remember what Jane had told her before she threw the tea box at him; he called her stupid and had accused her of just wanting to advance her career by bringing him in alive._

_Anger swelled inside her again. After all these years of helping him to get on the right path and understand that this need for revenge is strictly a way for him to push his inner guilt, he had the nerve to accuse her of such a thing! She loved being Senior Agent of the CBI and nothing she did would change that. She didn't care about her role or climbing the corporate ladder, she only cared that he and the other victims' families got proper justice the right way. She had told him that his wife and daughter wouldn't want him to sacrifice his life or his freedom to avenge their deaths. That was partly the truth. She had grown to care for Jane a lot over the years, something she told herself she would never do; not in the same way she cared for him now. There were times when she wasn't even sure the things she was feeling inside were truth. There was so much haze between her heart and her mind that she couldn't wade through it without getting angry and shutting off her thoughts._

_There was a sound in front of her, but the darkness prevented her from locating the source. Her mind was focused now, intent on keeping a close eye for any movement. She thought it was a popping sound, but she couldn't be sure. Moving slightly so she could get a better look around the corner, she narrowed her eyes to peer through the dark, now wishing she would have opted to bring her flashlight. She left it behind fearing it would be too obvious if she used it, and would give her position away. She leaned forward and ducked her head to get a better view of the doorway when she heard the second pop; this time, it was close in front of her._

"_What the hell is that?" she mumbled, still squinting into the fraction of light of the doorway. _

_Flanked in shadows, she stepped ahead a few paces, causing the porch wood under her black boots to squeak. Her intention was get a better view, but by stepping out around the corner of the house, she was making herself more noticeable. She reached down and unsnapped the flap of her holstered weapon and placed her fingers over the handle. Stopping a few paces from where she started, a shadow caught her eyes, flashing across the illuminated part of the porch. She cocked her head and tried to place why it struck her odd, but she didn't have to._

_Pain shot down her head, down her neck and before she could stop herself, her hands were sliding off her weapon and her knees were buckling to the ground. She tried to scream, to kick, to do __**something,**__ but nothing would come; she was too dazed. She could feel her holster being cut from her hip, blackness starting to creep into her vision. Viciously, she was turned on her back and her legs were lifted into the air as she was dragged across the wooden porch, her small body whipping around the corner she had just come from. She could feel herself losing consciousness from the hit, the black spots in her eyes getting bigger and her body going limp._

_With the last of her strength, and with the last possible breath she would ever breathe, she formed what she thought would be her last word she ever said:_

"_Jane."_

_And then there was just darkness._

"Lisbon!"

Someone was shaking her shoulder. Startled, Lisbon awoke with a start and her hand went automatically to her hip, but she did not find her weapon there. Instead, she heard a chuckle from somewhere on left. Placing her hands over her eyes and rubbing them, she tried to focus her vision over her hazy, sleepy stupor.

"One of these days I am going to get shot for waking you up like this," Jane laughed, coming around her desk and sitting across from her. "I wouldn't blame you, of course. It was a busy night."

Lisbon had been so exhausted from lack of sleep, that she fell asleep in her office during her report about what happened last night. She looked at Jane across the desk and knew that he had been watching her sleep, and probably noticed how restless her dreams were. She could tell that much herself, as the paperwork on her desk were now heaps of crumpled papers. There was a small flicker of concern on his face, but Lisbon was used to this by now. She usually went through the whole scene when she was left to dream. She only hoped she didn't call out his name from her dreams like she usually did. Sometimes, she would wake up screaming in a sweaty fit; usually when...well, she didn't want to remember it right now; she only wanted to get back to work. She looked at his face to see if there was a sign she had done anything odd in her sleep, but he was stone-faced and unreadable.

"How long was I out?" she asked, flattening the crumpled papers and setting them aside for later. "It feels like forever."

"Forty-five minutes max," Jane told her, crossing his arms. "Did you find anything on the brick?"

"The report isn't in yet," she replied.

Lisbon had called Rigsby and Cho, but only after Jane had explained to her what he found on Melinda's picture. He had opened the file and pulled the picture of a close shot of her head and pointed to her forehead. At first, Lisbon hadn't seen anything out of place; normal blood spatters and dark marks that signaled decay starting. Jane reached around her hand and rotated the picture and pointed again to her forehead. There, in coagulated blood on her skin, was a letter: **R**. Lisbon could think of nothing that it stood for, and neither had Jane. After Rigsby had come and called for backup, Jane had shown the brick to them all. He showed them the image of the smiley face on one side, and flipped the other side over and showed them a big letter **L** carved into it, red blood staining the white. Cho had placed it into a Ziploc bag from Lisbon's kitchen until the forensics team could show up. None of them knew what it meant, but they knew the source of the brick, and could connect it back to Melinda's murder. Lisbon and Jane had awkwardly tried to explain what they were doing together, with Jane telling Cho that he was making sure she was okay. He hadn't look like he bought it, but he had shrugged anyway and went to get a hold of Van Pelt, who lived the farthest out and hadn't been alerted.

"No, guess it wouldn't be," he said, placing a finger on his chin. "What do you think those letters mean?"

She shrugged. If she had the answer, she would give it to him, but there was nothing to relate the two letters. _R _and _L_ could mean anything. She wracked her brains to try to connect them to something, but nothing came to her mind. She thought perhaps it was initials, but without solid evidence, she was guessing.

"I don't know," she said truthfully. "But he wanted me to know them."

Jane looked as if he knew this already and didn't like it. He took his finger off his chin and pointed at her, nodding his head.

"Yes," he told her. "I agree."

He leaned forward and was about to say something when Van Pelt knocked on the office door, stepping inside with a folder in her hand. She looked from Jane to Lisbon and waited until Lisbon wiggled her finger for Van Pelt to come closer.

"What is it, Grace?" Lisbon asked the pretty Redhead.

"Melinda's husband is waiting for you in conference room 2," she stated, closing the folder and handing it to Lisbon. "Bertram called him this morning to come up here, instead of you going down there. I guess with what happened last night and all..." she trailed off, not sure she should tread there or not.

"He did?" Lisbon asked with a hint of bitterness in her tone. She hated when Bertram decided to do things on his own. Talking to a victim's family in their own home gave her a lot of insight into their lives and how they led them. She loved the chance to understand them from their everyday surroundings. This hadn't been the first time Bertram took it upon himself to do such things.

"Of course he did," she replied darkly. "Thanks Grace."

She watched her leave and then turned to Jane, who was looking at her intently with mischievous eyes.

"What are you staring at me for? Do I look that terrible? Blame it on the lack of sleep, that's what I'm using as an excuse."

"No. It's nothing like that. You look perfectly fine—same as always. No, I've done something I hope you won't find your gun necessary for. I've booked you a room next to my own room at the hotel," he pressed on over Lisbon's look of detest, obviously opting for the direct approach. "You can't go home, Lisbon. Not with what happened. I want to know that I can keep a close eye on you and not have to sit on my uncomfortable bed or sleep on your-no offense-lumpy couch and worry that you're being hurt. I can't stand back and let that happen. There, at least, I can watch you."

Lisbon looked at him with condescension at first. She took it from Bertram, but now Jane? She didn't know if it was sleep deprivation or what, but she wasn't as angry as she should have been. Although she hated that he did it behind her back, she knew he was right. It wasn't a good idea to go back to her apartment; not right now, anyway. Her heart fluttered at the vision of her sleeping in the next room from Jane; her own apartment was one thing, but a hotel was another. She hadn't known he was up when she came to make coffee, or she would have avoided going downstairs altogether. She knew the relationship had gotten complex, and she didn't need even more mixed signals coming from him. She acted like it didn't bother her that he was hot and cold with her, but it did. If she didn't have her own complicated feelings for him, she wouldn't be bothered to notice his behavior.

"I am a -" she started.

"Yes, yes. You're an officer of the law and have a gun and blah, blah," he said, finishing her sentence, "but it won't help you when you don't expect it, Lisbon," he told her, standing and stretching his legs. "Besides, do you really want a cop outside your door twenty-four-seven? You know how being babysat makes you feel."

"Why? It's what _you_ want to do. They just have a gun." Lisbon glared at him. "Fine," she conceded, throwing her hands in the air. "I don't have time to debate on it. You know, you and Bertram make a good tag-team with your sneaky crap!"

Lisbon stood, grabbed the folder from her desk and walked out of her office, Jane laughing softly as he followed her down the hall and into the room they used as a conference area. A half hour later, Lisbon and Jane emerged from the room with Mr. Tolls, a dark-haired man who had married Melinda two years ago, but was of no help to Lisbon when it came to Melinda or what she was doing at the motel. He had told Lisbon that they were estranged from one another for the last year, and he hadn't seen Melinda in four months. He told her that he didn't detect any odd behavior, just that after they married, they seem to drift apart, so she had packed her Honda and took off. Lisbon noted this in her file, as they had found no sign of her car anywhere in the area. Jane had asked Mr. Tolls if he knew anyone who would want to harm Melinda, or if he saw any suspicious people in Melinda's life prior to her estranging from him, but he could think of nobody. Lisbon had looked inside her folder and she could find nothing to suggest that Mr. Tolls was lying; finances were fine, as were Mr. Toll's alibi. Jane also picked up on the fact that he was visibly upset that Melinda was dead. He was doing everything he was supposed to be doing as a grieving husband. Being estranged didn't mean the feelings died. Before the meeting ended, Mr. Tolls, whose first name was Jack, hugged Lisbon and said he was sorry for her loss, too. He mentioned Melinda told him while they were still dating that her ex-sister-in-law was a homicide detective; one of the best. They had concluded the meeting with Lisbon showing Jack a mug shot of the now notorious Brett Partridge. He told her he only saw him on Television during his trial, but he never saw him in person, and that he didn't think Melinda knew him personally, either.

"Squeaky clean," Lisbon told Jane as they watched the elevator doors close on Mr. Tolls. "He's not even in the radar. He doesn't even have a record. I think we can rule him out."

"Don't be too confident, Lisbon," Jane told her, turning with her and walking toward her office. "It's what we thought about Partridge."

"Boss," Rigsby called from behind them. "The report from forensics on the window-smashing brick is in. I put it on your desk."

Lisbon turned slightly so she could see him. "Thanks, Rigsby. Did the motel have surveillance set up at all?"

"I asked the night manager, and they said they're dummy cameras; more a deterrent than anything."

"Damn. So we don't know how she actually got to the motel. Her car wasn't in the parking lot, we've combed over it and all the cars were accounted for to other patrons."

She handed Rigsby the folder and added, "Have Van Pelt check out any abandoned Honda's that have been put in the system since last week. Cross them with any that have intense side damage."

"I'll get right on it," he told her, heading off to the right as Lisbon and Jane entered her office.

"They won't find anything in it even if they find it," Jane told her. "Whoever this is took lessons from Partridge. They aren't stupid."

"The search would be a formality," she replied, sitting down in her squeaky office chair and sighing. "She probably didn't get to the motel on her own, or if she did, she might not have used her own car to get there."

Lisbon reached for the manila envelope in front of her and opened it, her eyes gliding across the paper in what Jane knew was her intense concentration look. He hated when she was silent like this. He reached over for the rest of the file, but she put her hand down on it and narrowed her eyes at him before turning back to the report. Her mouth twisted downward into a frown. He wouldn't tell her this, or maybe he would, but he loved the way her face came down into a deep emotion. It made him smile internally because her bottom lip jutted out and he longed to reach out and touch it with his fingertip, feeling the softness. Suddenly, her eyes turned sharply to his and he realized then that he was looking at her lips as though he wanted to eat them off her face.

"What are you staring at?" she asked, cocking her head in confusion.

"Nothing," he lied after a moment. "Well, what does it say? I am guessing my hunch was right and that it is Melinda's blood," he said, pointing to the folder. "It's how psychopaths work."

"Not this one," Lisbon told him, handing him the file and slumping back in her chair. "It's not Melinda's blood."

"What?"

Jane scanned the report, and sure enough, the blood was not that of Melinda Lisbon-Tolls. Jane had been so sure it would turn out to be Melinda's. There was a significant amount of blood at the scene, and he was sure Red John had taken some of it for just such an occasion as lobbing a brick full of blood through a window. Jane noticed that the profile could not be matched to anyone in their DNA database, so the lab technician had concluded that the blood from the brick was inconclusive. Jane felt his face fall as he shut the file and slammed it down on the edge of the desk.

"This isn't good, Lisbon," he told her, shaking his head in frustration, "and you know why."

Lisbon nodded her head and sighed deeply. She did know why and she didn't like it. If anything, it chilled her to the core. Absently, she crossed her hand over her chest and felt the slight bump of her scar under her shirt.

"He's got another victim," she concluded. "He's killed someone else."

**X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X**

_There was something wrong. He could feel the change before he saw it. There was nothing he wanted more than to be there, but his day job just wouldn't allow him the spare time. Instead, he stood there, looking over everything and wondering in the back of his mind if he set everything up the way he was told. _

_He had finished the job, finally, at the crack of dawn, the sun spilling up over the hills in the distance. He had gathered his supplies, surveyed the area one more time, and finally left the scene so that he could shower and change before heading to his job. There wasn't really anything he could have messed up, but the nagging feeling just wouldn't quit._

_He watched from afar as they walked to the blue Citroen parked in the lot below and got in. He couldn't help but smile. Seemingly, they both were unaware of anything awaiting them. He had set the scene for Agent Lisbon, but he would take both of them discovering it if that was what was in the cards._

_Watching them drive off, he turned back from the window and smiled wider. He liked that he could keep tabs on them without having to do any extra work. It was such a hassle to hack into the computers for information; something he hated doing for various reasons, including having to code his tracks as to not be traced. He had to break into the computer system to find Melinda Lisbon's new name and address. Luckily, she had a minor record in the system for a previous theft conviction several years ago. He smiled at the memory of the conversation with her. She had been such an easy target. Little Annie was in trouble, he had told her. _

_He walked to his oak desk and sat down, pushing his keyboard out of the way and reaching in his pocket for his keys. Unlocking the drawer in front of him, he slid it open and pressed a hand inside, extracting what he was looking for and placing it on the dark wood where his keyboard had been a moment before._

_Turning it on, he sat back in his chair and placed his hands behind his head. He knew this was going to be fun. He planned on it being fun. Partridge had told him it would be. In the days before his capture, Partridge had told him of everything he would need to do, laying it out in great detail. He was instructed that if Partridge got caught, that he was not to contact him in any way, but instead carry on his work. Partridge had told him that only one person had gotten away before he was finished with his art—Agent Lisbon, and he was instructed to finish it for good, and to take Patrick Jane with her._

_The screen flashed, and he pressed a button. Within a second or two, it popped up on his screen and he was glad to see that it had worked. He wanted to laugh, but he knew this was not the time. Instead, satisfied that it worked, he turned it off and shoved it back into his desk drawer just as a knock came on his door._

"_Come in," he called out, shutting the drawer on his secret as he waved them inside._

**X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X**

"There isn't a damn thing we can do without a body," Lisbon was saying an hour later, putting her suitcase full of her belongings on the bed of her hotel room. "Nobody has called one in, and we would have found it by now if he's going by the same pattern Partridge did."

Jane had driven Lisbon back to her apartment to gather her clothes and other necessities, and was hauling her rolling suitcase into the small closet off the bathroom. The motel room was small, but it had everything she could need; a television in an open cabinet, a king sized bed [which admittedly was a bit lumpy], a desk and chair and a small nightstand beside the bed. It was the same as Jane's room, but he knew it wouldn't be long before it smelled of Lisbon. He quite liked the smell of her. She didn't wear perfume, but she always smelled like cinnamon and strawberry shampoo. He loved sniffing the air after she left a room. It was one of his favorite things about her, and still was.

"Lisbon, you count on patterns too much," Jane told her, placing her room key on the desk and turning to her.

"What the hell is that?" Lisbon cut in, pointing to the middle of the room at a door with a brass lock across the jamb.

_Oh, shit._ He forgot to mention that. He could see the narrowing of her eyes and the frown on her face and he put his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels. This should be fun to explain, he thought.

"It connects to my room," he told her. He opted for the truth because pissing her off even more right now was not a good idea. "It's locked, don't worry."

The indignation on her face almost made him laugh. She walked over to the door, ripped the lock to the right, and opened the door. Inside, there was another door, this one was not locked. She opened the door and walked inside a room that looked just like her own. It was tidy, all except for a tea kettle plugged into a socket and sitting on the small desk near the window, a blue teacup sitting beside it. She looked around to find Jane standing behind her, grinning.

"No," she said simply. "No, Jane. This is not a high school sleep-over."

"It's locked at all times, Lisbon," he told her. "Plus, this door will be shut, too."

"If you so much as open this door a crack, Paddy, I will hurt you," she said, shaking her head and walking around him and back to her own room where she slammed the door and secured the lock.

"Understood," he said under his breath, turning and closing his own door, which he did not lock. "That went better than expected."

It was a few hours later that Jane knocked on Lisbon's door, his hands full of Thai food. He considered it a kind of peace offering, but he wasn't sure she would. At the mention of food, Lisbon opened the door and let him slip inside.

"What is this, some kind of offering for pissing me off?" Lisbon asked, taking the carton from Jane and sitting on the edge of the bed.

"You make it sound so bad."

He sat down beside her on the bed and watched her contently as she opened her box, jabbing a fork into the middle of its contents and looking at him. She was trapping her bottom lip in her teeth again, making his thoughts turn to dirty reception. He didn't mind the closeness of their bodies in relation to the bed behind them. It was like his inner most fantasies, only they weren't naked and he wasn't making her moan like in his daydreams.

"Jane?" she asked, effectively bringing him out of his thoughts.

"Hmm?" he mumbled, taking a bit of his noodles from his box and placing them in his mouth.

She was silent for a moment, her eyes avoiding his. Jane sucked in a noodle off his fork and cleared his throat. He hadn't seen Lisbon act this way in a very long time. Despite her annoyance at him earlier, she seemed shy and unsure now. He watched as she spun her fork around her container and finally watched her look up at him.

"It wasn't your fault, you know," she started, lifting her glazed chicken to her mouth and chewing. "I mean, that night."

"Lisbon, I don't—," he interjected.

"No," Lisbon told him firmly. "Let me finish. It wasn't your fault. I shouldn't have gone there alone. As a cop, I knew better; I didn't even call for backup. It was my fault."

Forming words didn't hit Jane's brain right away. He was used to her skirting around everything about that night that he sat there in shock for what seemed like a long time. He had tried to coax her to talk about it with him many times, but there was never any success. At the trial for Partridge, she had run through the story with only the essential details, and skimmed the rest. He remembered how he had sat there in the courtroom and listened to her and how he wished he hadn't turned off his phone that night. Her face had been a mix of pain and horror, and it was an expression he could never forget.

"Blaming yourself for what happened isn't going to make things better, Lisbon. We both said things we shouldn't have, and the consequences from that are mine to take. I know you feel like you walked into the trap, but the truth is that I pushed you into it. I never meant you to get hurt, Lisbon. This is the last thing I would ever want for you. I was a selfish prick and nothing you admit to me right here and now will ever change the fact that this," he reached out and placed his hand over her scar, "is a direct cause of what I did."

She flinched ever so slightly under his touch and he pulled his hand away, clearing his throat and again swirling his noodles in his container. He avoided her gaze, and he could feel hers on his face. He wasn't embarrassed about touching her, he was just unsure of what the flinch meant, and didn't want to push her. He always hated when he had to stop touching her, because it felt like the warmth was sucked right out of his body.

She didn't reply to him, so he thought the moment of openness had passed. He could still feel her gaze baring a hole on his face, but he didn't turn his eyes to her. It seemed like years of silence before either of them spoke again. Jane had eaten half his carton before she piped up.

"I tried calling you many times after I got out of the hospital," she told him, reaching over to the desk on her left side and placing her food container on it, and then turning back to him. "I just couldn't bring myself to let you answer."

He would never tell her about how when she was asleep, hopped up on pain medication, he would sit there and watch her sleep. He would count how many times she mumbled in her sleep; how many times he looked at her and wondered what it would be like to kiss the soft lips. He always left by the time she awakened, never leaving any sign he was ever there. He felt she didn't need the reminder that he existed. He would never tell her that he did the same thing; always calling but never leaving her answer. Locked up in his attic gave him a chance to stew in what happened. He had picked up the phone so many times, but he only let it ring twice before he hung up, not willing to hurt her all over again.

"Why are you telling me this, Lisbon? Before, you—_we_—skirted around the topic. Is something on your mind?"

She sighed and shrugged. "I feel I owe you a thank you."

He unconsciously leaned a little closer to her and set his mouth in a frown.

"Don't do this, Teresa, please." he told her, shaking his head and letting out a sharp exhale. "Please don't."

"Okay," she gave in, "but you know where I stand, Jane. I would have more problems than just an ugly scar if you hadn't come when you did."

He hated how she talked about herself. He didn't like the words she used to describe her scar. He couldn't understand how she could think of herself that way! He wished he could shake her and tell her how amazingly beautiful she really is! She thought the scar made her less beautiful, but it only made her that much more gorgeous in his eyes. He had noticed the way she tried to cover up the damn thing as if it made all the eyes turn to it as soon as she walked into a room. He knew why she insisted on wearing a shirt that covered her up to her throat, and it made him want to rip open her shirt and tell her that the scar is what made her special. Sure, the reminder of how she got it was painful, but he would never find her unattractive for any reason-not even for a scar.

He was so close to her now that he could feel the heat from her body. He didn't dare reach out and touch her scar again, instead, he took her chin in his free hand and stroked her cheek with the pad of his thumb. He knew the attraction of her touch was too much for him, but he didn't care.

"Jane?" she whispered softly, not breaking eye contact with him.

"Nobody said the scar was ugly," he told her. "How you got it may be ugly for you, but how you wear it is not."

She didn't say anything for the longest time. Instead, she let his blue eyes stare into her green ones and allowed the sensation of his touch wash over her. She could feel the pull in her belly, as she always did when he touched her so intimately. She could see and feel him inching closer and closer to her, his eyes scanning hers and travel slowly down to her lips. She could feel the hunger coming off of him, the unsure tilt of his head. She wasn't going to stop him. If this is what he wanted from her, this is what she would give him. Besides, it wasn't as if she could control her own actions, either. He was leaning in close enough for her to see the slight quiver in his lips. Lisbon mimicked Jane and parted her lips and closed her eyes.

_BZZ! BZZ!_

Jane's eyes flew open in startled haste, and he quickly released Lisbon's chin. Lisbon, he could see, also was startled, and was now a ripe shade of Burgundy. She got up from the bed and took to throwing out her container, making sure to take her good old time doing so.

"Goddamn it," Jane scowled.

It was his cell vibrating in his vest pocket. Who would be calling him? He reached into his vest, clearly pissed off, and answers the phone, still trying to calm his hammering heart.

"Hello?" he asked, a bit gruffly.

He listened for a moment, and he could feel his face change into a deep frown. Lisbon noticed the change, because she stopped and looked at him with furrowed eyebrows and a deep look of confusion.

"When?" he waited for a moment. "No. I will be right there."

Jane hung up the phone and placed his finger to his lips, which he only did when he was thinking.

"What? What is it?" Lisbon inquired, her embarrassment all but forgotten. "Is it the team?"

"No," he replied softly. "It's not the team."

Lisbon put her hands up in a half-shrug. "Then what the hell is that face for?"

Jane looked at her and stood, placing his phone back in his vest pocket.

"They found our body."

"Where?"

"Spread out on the front porch of my house in Malibu," he told her. "Let's go."

**X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X**

_He was careful to blend in. The sand and the waves behind him whooshing up the sandbanks gave him a familiar comfort. _

_He watched as the uniformed men and women gathered around the wide veranda, some kneeling down to get a better look. He knew the scene very well, and was glad he could stay back further. He had made the scene so that it would deliver the best reaction when he and Agent Lisbon first saw it._

_The cutting was the hardest part, this time, because it was so dark when he started. He had finally found his rhythm as he cut into the abdomen, feeling the blood fall over the latex covering his hands. He had decided to pose her; something Partridge would never have approved of. Partridge was much more a refined killer; one who stuck to a certain code. Deep inside, he knew that posing her was the right thing to do. He had picked out a special pose for Jane._

_Jane._

_He loved matching wits with the boy wonder. He, in a lot of ways, was more fun to mess with than Agent Lisbon._

_There was a car engine in the distance, and he turned in hopes it was the sedan. Not surprisingly, it was a black Coroners van dusting its way up the winding driveway to the large beachside home. Perhaps Jane wasn't coming. Maybe this place held too many memories for him. No. That wasn't the Jane he knew. And he did know him quite well._

_He looked down at his watch and sighed. He turned away from the scene and looked out over the waves in the ocean. It was such a lovely home. He almost wondered why Jane kept it empty, but then he remembered and he smiled. Oh, yes. He remembered now._

_He took out the small screen from his pocket and flicked it on. He had grabbed it last minute from his desk drawer, thinking he might need it. As the light switched on, and the screen powered up, he could see the image on the screen was empty. He smiled._

_They would be here soon, no doubt. He switched off the screen, stuck it back in his pocket and turned around once again to face the scene. This time when a dusty trail burst up from the graveled driveway, it was Lisbon's Sedan._

_He chuckled now, careful not to catch anyone's attention._

"_He's going to love his surprise," he said, taking a deep breath and walking into the crowd of people surrounding the body, his ID card slapping against his pocket._

_In the next moment, he was engulfed by people and gone from view._

_Thanks for the reviews as always._

_Next we shall see what is in store for Jane and Lisbon braves her fear. Next Chapter!_


End file.
